The present invention relates to a shift-position select lever device for an automatic transmission mounted on an automotive vehicle, and more particularly to a shift-position select lever device through which a driver can select an automatic shift mode (A/T mode) and a manual shift mode (M/T mode).
Such a shift lever device is normally arranged to be utilized upon the automatic power transmission to select a particular gear shift mode by laterally swinging the shift lever with respect to a vehicle running direction. Japanese Patent Application First Publication No. Heisei 7-32902, No. 7-32903, No. Heisei 7-32904 and No. Heisei 7-35224 disclose several technological arts of such switchable shift lever devices for the automatic transmissions in which a switching between the automatic transmission mode and the manual power transmission mode can be easily and appropriately be executed in order to make the vehicle driver feel as if he or she were operating a manual power transmission.
However, such shift lever devices are further required to be improved in structure and design in order to ensure a smaller-size and a more preferable utility.